5 Quick Year-End Tax Hacks

The state and local tax deduction (SALT) increased from $10,000 in 2024 to $40,000 in 2025. State and local taxes of all varieties (income, property, and sales) are deductible up to $40,000 in 2025.
 
Sales and property tax
People that live in one of the states without income tax (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming) can deduct the sales tax you paid. You can either keep receipts and directly show the amount of sales tax you have paid or the IRS has a calculator that will approximate your sales tax payments based on consumption patterns in your zip code.  In addition, you can deduct your property taxes which you can pull directly from your property tax statements.

SALT payments made in 2025 for 2024
If you paid state or property tax in 2025 for 2024, for example you paid state tax of $5,000 in January of 2025 to settle your state tax liability for 2024, you can include that amount in the SALT deduction for 2024.

Accelerate payments
In the event you have a major property or state income tax payment due in early 2026 and still have a significant amount of SALT deduction that you have not used, consider making a payment in December to pull forward the tax benefit into this year.

If you have a stock in a taxable account that you want to sell, have owned more than a year, and also want to donate to charity, consider killing two birds with one stone by donating the appreciated stock to charity. You get a deduction for the full value of the stock and you avoid paying the capital gains tax on the stock. Overall the charity gets the same amount of money, but you get to pay less taxes. The greater your percentage gain and the higher your tax rate, the greater your savings.

Cash donation

Donate $100 in cash, 30% all in tax rate

$100 * .30 = $30 in tax savings

Total tax savings: $30

Stock donation

Donate $100 in stock, 33% all in tax rate, gain on stock is $50

$100 * .30 = $30 in tax savings + $50 gain * .20 tax on capital gain = $10 in taxes you would have paid have you sold.

Total tax savings: $40

If you have a loss from a security (stock, bond etc.) you can sell it and “harvest” the loss. The loss can be used to offset other capital gains you had in the year or up to $3,000 in losses can be used to offset ordinary income.

Donating old items is faster than selling them, better for the environment than throwing them out, and gives you a tax deduction. Thrift stores with charitable arms like Goodwill will give you a form wherein you can put the value of the items you donated. They have suggested donation amounts per item and in my experience simply give you a blank piece of signed stationary that you can fill in with the items you donated. You can only take a tax deduction for the donation if you itemize on your tax returns. Be reasonable about the value of the goods you donated. A book for example probably isn’t worth $20 even if you bought it for $75 originally.

Retirement accounts (401ks, IRAs and similar accounts) are all a free tax deferral from the federal government. You should max them out every year. If your employer matches your contribution then you are getting free money and you should try even harder to at the very least max out the match.